Characterization of 2D and 3D Rough Fractal Surfaces from Backscattered Radar Data

The scattering of electromagnetic (EM) waves, emitted by a monostatic radar, from two - dimensional (2D) rough fractal surfaces is examined by using the Kirchhoff approximation. We examine the way that the level of roughness of the fractal surface affects the backscattered EM wave captured by a radar as a function of frequency (therefore, a ‘spectral method’) and whether the roughness of the surface can be estimated from these radar measurements. The backscattering coefficient is calculated for a number of radar frequencies and for different values of the surface fractal dimension. It is found that the values of the slopes between the main lobe and the first sidelobes of the backscattering coefficient as a function of the wave number (frequency) of the incident EM waves increase with the surface fractal dimension. Therefore, we conclude that the magnitude of the above slopes provides a reliable method for the classification of the rough fractal surfaces. Furthermore, concerning three - dimensional (3D) fractal surfaces, investigations similar to the above are already performed by the authors and will be presented during the Conference. The above are also investigated in the presence of electronic noise in the radar receiver (effect of SNR values in the above proposed technique).